New face

The Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform advises that it has replaced Bob Lange as its representative to the Department of Education's FCAT advisory panel. Lange, a retired UCF professor, had to bow out for personal reasons. So vocal FCAT critic Sherman Dorn, a USF education professor, will step in.

Dorn is well known not only locally, where he has participated in several education forums including Hillsborough's calendar committee, but also nationally through his education policy journal and his regular contributions to blogs including his own. His latest book, Accountability Frankenstein, details his views on how high-stakes testing and accountability don't necessarily have to be at odds.

The committee has not yet set its next meeting time. Expect Dorn to be a lively addition.

Comments

[Gloria Pipkin]

Your characterization of Dr. Dorn's position "on how high-stakes testing and accountability don't necessarily have to be at odds" doesn't accurately convey his arguments in Accountability Frankenstein. I won't presume to speak for Dr. Dorn, but here are a couple of relevant excerpts from the book. The final chapter opens with these lines: "Two poor choices are generally described by proponents of high-stakes accountability: maintaining high-stakes testing or eliminating accountability entirely. Neither is appropriate and neither is necessary."

The chapter ends with this paragraph:

"...I hope that along with Sharon Nichols and David Berliner's (2007) Collateral Damage, this book establishes useful perspectives on accountability for its most vigorous defenders, its harshest critics, and those of us who're somewhere in the middle. If you thought high-takes testing accountability was necessary and appropriate before reading the book, I have tried to make you uncomfortable with the consequences. If you signed the Kovacs petition [calling for an end to NCLB] or otherwise thought that accountability has no place in schooling, I have written some of this book to make you rethink your opposition to accountability. And if you are like me and think accountability is necessary but out of hand, this book was mainly written for you, to show where our accountability Frankenstein monster came from and how we can tame it and force it to do some useful work."